


Snapdragon Hanahaki

by struwwel



Category: Rammstein
Genre: Angst, Freeform, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Sad, Unrequited Love, stupidly sad?, way too much angst, what even is this I am so sorry please don’t hate me
Language: Deutsch
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:01:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28134363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/struwwel/pseuds/struwwel
Summary: Hanahaki Disease (花吐き病 (Japanese); 하나하키병 (Korean); 花吐病 (Chinese)) is a fictional disease in which the victim coughs up flower petals when they suffer from one-sided love. It ends when the beloved returns their feelings (romantic love only; strong friendship is not enough), or when the victim dies. It can be cured through surgical removal, but when the infection is removed, the victim's romantic feelings for their love also disappear.- or in which I wrote a sad, experimental one shot in two fast sittings with a trope I don’t like.
Relationships: Richard Kruspe/Till Lindemann
Comments: 12
Kudos: 27





	Snapdragon Hanahaki

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nyarisu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyarisu/gifts).



> The summary says it all. To be honest, I really think this is a kitschy, stupid, overly romantic trope that treats love as magic instead of a choice and a complex human emotion, but apparently I wasn’t immune to the damned thing when Nyarisu asked for it. I wrote this in two super fast sittings with hardly any editing, which I never do, but still kinda ended up liking it for some reason I don’t understand because I hate everything about it too. It’s definitely sort of experimental and I think I see it as more of a writing exercise than anything else, but I figure I might aswell post it?! See it as an insight into my sketchbook or whatever and please don’t judge me lol

_**Snapdragons** are said to represent both deception (perhaps tied to the notion of concealment), deviousness and graciousness. They can also represent the idea of grace under pressure and the internal strength that is necessary to overcome challenging situations.  
  
_

_____

Richard picks wild snapdragons. They grow in abundance between the grass, little yellow flowers that lack the undiluted happiness little yellow flowers usually spread. They are pretty enough, he supposes, but they have a weird, mask like appearance, like little monsters opening their jaws. Little dragons indeed.

Richard picks snapdragons and is glad that noone can see him. They boys are out, gone for breakfast at the café, and he’s alone for once because he has overslept again. He feels like a little girl in an animated movie, bending and observing those little yellow flowers, picking out the prettiest with the long stems so he can put them in a vase later.

Richard picks snapdragons to bundle up and put into the little blue jug he’s found between the mugs in the studio kitchen. He wants to have a little blue jug full of flowers to put on the dresser in Till’s room, dead center.

Richard picks snapdragons because they are Till’s favorite flower, and he feels he needs to apologize. Yesterday, Till has left the studio half in tears, because Richard has pulled one of his «I don’t think I can do this anymore» stunts, the studio descended into chaos, and Till doesn’t like him saying that - or chaos. He picks them, because he has no words for how sorry he is, about always making their lives so hard.

Richard stares at the little blue jug with the little yellow flowers and decides that it is too obvious. Till will notice a bright yellow bunch of flowers put on his dresser, dead center, and he will know it’s been put there only for him. And because Richard is the only one who has anything to apologize for, and probably is the only person that he’s ever mentioned snapdragons too, he will know Richard has put them there.

Richard doesn’t want anyone to know that he is picking snapdragons for Till. The word would spread and they will make fun of him, and this is too serious to be made fun of. They will tease him, when all he wants is to apologize, and even if it is good natured fun, his apology should not be funny, because he means it.

In the end, he puts the little jug dead center into the window next to Till’s singing booth. Maybe the housekeeper has put them there, he rehearses his argument. They grow everywhere behind the house after all.

___

“Oh look! Snapdragons!” Till exclaims, full of excitement, that afternoon. Till is a little bit tense, because today they start recording vocals, and Richard is happy to see him smile.

“Snap-what?!” Flake frowns. 

“Snapdragons!” Till takes out a single stem, with a few heavy blooms, and pinches them. He shows Flake how the little dragons open their jaws when you pinch them the right way. The lower half of their weirdly shaped petals will open up, the bottom dropping like a snout. If pinched repeatedly, their little dragon faces look like they’re talking. Till reenacts some stupid scene from a puppet show, making the flower talk in a high pitched, fake flower voice, and articulates with shaking his shoulders. Flake giggles. Till seems happy but Richard is sad. His apology has turned funny, after all.

“They grow everywhere behind the house,” he says to his feet, and settles down in his chair, with his pedals, and his laptop and waits for everyone to be ready. He’s determined to not cause trouble today, but he doesn’t like the song they are working on right now, even if it’s just for testing it out. His playing is probably going to be crap. As crap as his apologies are.

Till rearranges the flowers back on the windowsill. “They are very pretty,” he says satisfied. “Interesting and funny and beautiful. Perfect package.”

Richard suddenly wishes he could be a snapdragon.

___

Richard leaves the dinner table early to smoke.

He feels tired - tired of making himself fit in. He doesn’t like the wine, he’s tired of water, but he doesn’t want to ask for something else again. He would like to talk about music but Christoph and Till have installed a stern “no talking about music during meals” rule years ago and he doesn’t know what else he can talk about. Flake and Olli talk politics, Flake working himself up and Olli offering calm, deadpan one liners that agree with everything their keyboarder says but take the whine out of it. Paul listens and laughs, sometimes offering bitter jokes of his own. Richard doesn’t like talking politics, it always feels so removed from lived reality and people’s pain. It makes him sad, so he’d rather not listen.

Christoph is on his phone with his lady. He’s so devoted to her and they seem so happy. Richard wishes he could be like them.

Till is silent and introverted. Singing has taken alot out of him today, and he withdraws. It makes Richard chest ache and he wishes he could do more than picking ugly flowers to make him smile.

And because he is tired of all of these things he leaves the table to smoke. He walks around the house to sit in the grass between the flowers and watches the sun set. His cigarette scratches his throat. He picks a single snapdragon and stares into it’s ugly little dragon face.

“He loves me, he loves me not doesn’t really work with you, does it,” he foully accuses the flower and pinches it so it opens it’s jaw. _He loves you not_ , the flower says.

Richard keeps his snapdragon despite it’s rudeness, rolls it between his fingertips, smokes his cigarette and watches the sun set.

“They really do grow everywhere behind the house,” a familiar voice interrupts the silence, and Till sits down next to him. His eyes are looking very green, lit up by the low standing sun. Richard is concerned he’s been found out, but Till doesn’t say any more to him.

“I am sorry, about yesterday,” Richard says, and offers Till his lonely flower. Maybe it makes for a better apology this way.

Till looks a little surprised, but then picks the flower out of his hand with a little smile. “Don’t worry about it.”

Then he watches Richard with an angled head and intent eyes. “Are you allright? You look sad.”

Richard just shrugs. “I’m fine,” he says. “Everything like it always is.”

“Richard is sad,” Till tells the flower in his hand and then turns it towards Richard. “ _Why are you sad, Richard!_ ” He resumes his high pitched flower voice and pinches the flower to make it talk.

Richard has to smile, despite himself. The flower is a lot less rude with Till around. “Because I’m lonely,” he concedes. It’s weirdly easy to talk to a snapdragon.

“Richard is an idiot,” Till tells the flower in a conspiring voice. “He thinks just because he doesn’t have a thousand siblings that look just like him he is all alone.”

“ _Pah!_ ” Makes the flower. “ _I have a thousand siblings that all look like me, and it’s really annoying._ ”

“See?” Till tells Richard. He actually has to laugh a bit. It makes him cough. “At least you’re unique. No reason to be sad.”

“ _Don’t be sad, Richard!_ ” Till makes the flower say in it’s high pitched voice. He’s pinched the petal so many times now, it’s starting to look a little rough. Richard descends into a fit of giggles, because it’s all so stupid, and light, and they sit in a field of flowers of all places, and Till makes him laugh. It makes him cough more too, and Till tells him he has to smoke less because he has no intention of watching him die. Richard promises that he will stop soon, and they both know it’s not a promise he will keep. Maybe he will have to pick more snapdragons to make up for it.

___

Richard really thinks its the smoking at first and he tries to cut back. They’re on tour, it’s hard, but he argues it will be better for him over all. It doesn’t get better, and his lungs still hurt and he coughs so much Till looks at him with worried eyes. Richard smiles at him like it is nothing.

Touring is grueling. It’s grueling, the way he is just has become this tiny cog in a big machine. He has to be on time, all the time, he has to make himself small so he is not so much of a bother to his tech and his management and his band, and the people who set the stage, and who take care of his flamethrowers. He can’t decide about how he wants his day to go, because his day is already planned and he can’t get out. Sometimes he thinks he _has_ to get out, must get out because he can’t breathe.  


Till takes him out into town to eat, drags him into some small, dirty old restaurant in some shady looking back street that somehow serves the best steak and potatoes he has ever had. Till looks at him with worried eyes and tells him that he’s not alone, and it makes him decide to stay. Richard smiles back and coughs and Till tells him he smokes too much again.

  
___

The first time Richard coughs up a squashed, ugly looking, little yellow flower petal he thinks he is dreaming. He pokes at it in the sink, and it feels a bit slimy and he tells himself that it’s just a flu. He looks at himself in the mirror and reasons that he is looking rather pale and feverish and that he always gets sick on tour, and this is just a fever dream. He goes to bed and remembers snapdragons, and he knows he’s never had less of a flu in his entire life.

When the small, squashed petals keep coming, Richard tries to undo the damage. He counts the things he dislikes about Till: the way he picks his teeth after eating, the way his poems sometimes scare him, the way he gets into stupid shit when he has had too much to drink, the way he sulks when they don’t like his lyrics, the way he leaves his dirty socks all over their dressing rooms. He writes list after list to help him fall out of love, and when none of them work he tries to get angry.

When Till is late, Richard starts snapping at him, when he is hungover Richard starts blaming him, when he looses his rhythm he belittles him. Till doesn’t get angry back. He just looks lost and tries to do better. Then he looks lost and asks if he has done something wrong. He keeps looking lost and begs Richard to tell him what is going on, and when Richard still tries to be angry, he bangs at his door at night and asks what he can do to fix it.

Till sounds like he has been crying, and Richard knows his plan has failed.

Richard tells Till that he is just going through something and that no, he can’t help him. He asks for forgiveness and tells him he is just lonely. He says he wants to make it up to him, but he has no energy. He tells Till that he’s never been this sad in his life. He lies when he tells him he doesn’t know why.

When Richard gets home, he starts coughing up blood, together with the flowers. There are so many flowers now, ugly, pretty little things that talk to him in his sleep and tell him stories about Till.

He stares at them in despair: red and yellow and white porcelain. He starts to understand that they will kill him. Richard doesn’t want to die.

___

The specialized station at the hospital is designed in intentionally cheery colors and inspirational quotes on the wall. It’s suspiciously devoid of any flowers and instead holds weeds and trees, in an effort to look less clinical and horrible. The station at the hospital is miserably failing at inspiring any hope at all. The yellow paint is the last thing Richard wants to see, and the forced, overacted compassion in the nurses voices is the last thing he wants to hear. They look at him as if he’s dying, when he came here to live. Maybe they look like that because they know that once they are through with him, he might not have a reason to want to live anymore. Maybe they look that way because more than half of the people on the station are dying, and they can’t move the muscles in their faces any other way anymore.

The nurses tell Richard that he is lucky. He still has some time, they say, snapdragons are a small and harmless flower they say, at least it’s not a thorny rose that kills in record time or a lily with those horribly big petals. They say they have to make priorities, and that snapdragons are a small and harmless flower and that he has to wait for another two days for the surgery.

Richard hides in his joyless hospital room and coughs and coughs and it hurts, and his heart hurts, and it hurts because he just wants the pain gone, and it hurts because in two days he won’t feel that warm, comforting ache anymore.

Richard hides in his ugly, antiseptic smelling bed and cries because his love is only a small, harmless flower, and because he didn’t come here to die, but to live. He cries because he feels the practiced compassion of the nurses is wasted on him and like he doesn’t deserve it. He cries because it makes sense that he is here and in this position, because Till deserves someone who is willing to die for their love for him, and Richard isn’t willing to do that. He coughs, and hurts and cries and wishes he could be less selfish. He wishes he wouldn’t want to live this badly, so he could spend his last moments being in love with Till.

___

  
Till stands in his room and looks at him with shock and worry. His lips are formed into an astonished, empathetic “oh.“ Till scans the yellow paint and ugly emotional support poster that inspires no hope at all, and he understands what station he his on and he looks so terribly sorry for him. Richard doesn’t know how he has found him, but he wishes he would go away. He tells him as much. He doesn’t want Till to ask him who it is. He tells him as much too, because he knows Till is too much of a pighead to leave.

Till closes his mouth and stays mute, and refuses to leave. He sits down on the edge of his antiseptic smelling bed and puts a sturdy hand on his back, right between his shoulder blades. Till remains mute for the rest of the day and stays with him, hand pressed to his back, and stroking his hair. Richard cries again, because come tomorrow he won’t feel the same when he remembers this.

Richard hides his face in his pillow and coughs and coughs and it hurts so much, and now he has to hide all the stupid yellow flowers too. Eventually he just coughs because he can’t breathe without moving away from his stupid pillow. Till is too much of a pighead to leave, even when asked, and he makes him turn over. Till’s lips form a shocked and worried “oh” and he stares at the snapdragons, at yellow and blood against antiseptic white. Till is too much of a pighead to ever leave.

___

Richard wakes up and it doesn’t smell of antiseptics anymore, it smells of Till. Till his holding him from behind, sharing his bed and sleeping, and it has chased the hospital smell away. He has his hand pressed flat against his chest and snores into Richard’s ear. His lungs still hurt, but they hurt less.

A nurse is taking Richard’s vitals, and her smile is open and genuine. The yellow paint on the wall looks friendly, warmed by the sun falling into the room. Richard thinks he might have died in surgery.

“You’re going to need a few more days of recovery, but then you can go home,” the nurse tells him, and her teeth shine as white as Richard’s antiseptic bedsheets. “You will be completely fine. Congratulations!” It’s the first time Richard sees a real emotion since he has come here, and he doesn’t understand. Till wakes up and grumbles and holds on tight. Richard doesn’t understand.

Till kisses him too. He puts small kisses on the corners of his mouth, like he is asking permission for something everybody knows he needs no permission for. He puts bigger kisses on his lower lip, and then nibbles at his upper lip, as if he’s trying to persuade him. Richard isn’t easy to persuade, but eventually he has to give in, and Till breathes warm and soothing oxygen into his tortured lungs. Richard doesn’t understand that either.

Richard thinks it’s a cruel trick of fate that the narcotics make him dream like this while he’s undergoing a surgery that cuts away the very thing he is dreaming about. Richard thinks he must be dreaming, in any case, and hopes he never wakes up. Everytime he does, Till is still there.

“Congratulations,” say the nurses with their happy smiles, when they discharge him. Richard pinches himself so hard, it draws blood. It seems he must be wide awake.

___

Back in his sparse Berlin apartment, Till puts him to bed and fusses. He fusses so much, Richard starts to feel smothered and annoyed and like he just wants to be alone. Till fusses so much, Richard starts to be convinced the only reason he’s not currently dying is that he’s simply not in love anymore. He tells Till as much and Till laughs at him and doesn’t buy it, but he does bring him his guitar and leaves him alone for a few hours. 

___

Richard hates snapdragons. Till still smiles whenever he sees some. Till still thinks they are interesting and beautiful and funny.

Till thinks Richard is interesting too. He listens to everything he has to say. He tells him he finds him beautiful every day, even if it’s done crudely sometimes. He laughs at his stupid, sarcastic jokes he steals from movies and changes slightly because he can never remember them right. Till tells him “I love you, too” at least once a week, even though Richard has never said the same to him and sometimes doubts he ever can. Till doesn’t seem to worry about it.

Richard thinks Till has shitty taste. It’s ok though, especially on those days when Richard would do anything to be more of a rose and less of a snapdragon. On those days, Till tells him roses smell too sweet and are too pretentious, and they have no character, and only look good on ugly valentines cards, plus they have thorns, and that he’d take a snapdragon over any other flower any day of the week. 

Richard wishes he had thorns and polished beauty. But then he is glad that Till’s favorite flowers are snapdragons. This way, at least, he got to live with his love intact.

**Author's Note:**

> Is this the point where I tell you that I don’t know anything at all about anime and I just hope I didn’t completely butcher your horrible trope? 🖤


End file.
